Seven Portraits from the Past

I still remember being fascinated by faces and drawing them when I was very young, perhaps three and for sure four years old. At age eight I began piano lessons which I abandoned after two and a half years. Books were also a part of my life, as was baseball.

So this is a reminder to parents that there is real value in exposing your children to experiences while they are young. You never know where it will lead.

I never took my art seriously after college, for various reasons that need no explanation here. When I began blogging in 2007 it seemed that one way to avoid copyright infringements by using photos and illustrations from others, I could illustrate by creating my own work. Up till then most of what I did was pretty much a form of doodling. It had no real purpose. You will find more than a thousand images here at my Many Faces of Ennyman blog.

My early interest in faces has never abated. Maybe one day I will try to paint yours.

Meantime, life goes on all around you. Engage it.

Rare Events

An interesting, or maybe unusual, chapter in the history of Duluth was the presence of Harry Rimmer here as pastor of the First Presbyterian Church in the Central Hillside. Rimmer had been a nationally known evangelist, Fundamentalist and Creationist whose reputation was nearly as large as Billy Sunday's, the Billy Graham equivalent of his time. I bring him up only to comment on an incident that occurred here in Duluth in the late 1920's when he was conducting a week of meetings at the church he would later return to preside over from 1934-39.

If I had access to the archives of the Duluth News Tribune I would perhaps be able to find the exact date of this event, because the DNT gave Rimmer's meetings front page headlines while he was in town. The net result was a packed out sanctuary five nights in a row, more than a thousand cramming the balcony, aisles and doorways.

At the end of the first night Rimmer promised that everyone who came back the following evening would see something they had never seen before, and would never see again.

Whereas the proclamation was true, I'm sure that anyone who has ever clicked on a misleading banner ad (what we've come to term clickbait) will recognize the ploy for what it was. At some point the following night Dr. Rimmer (the credentials were similarly misleading) pulled an unshelled peanut from his pocket, held it up, cracked it open and declared, "This peanut which you now see has never been seen before." After popping it into his mouth and swallowing it, Rimmer proclaimed, "And you will never see it again."

This story came to mind as I contemplated our 2016 World Series. Why? Because whichever team wins will set off an explosion of pent up emotions like you can't even imagine.

The Chicago Cubs will take a monkey off their backs that has tormented them for 108 years. The Indians will be liberated from a curse that has afflicted Cleveland's Tribe and fans since 1948.

If the Cubs achieve their dream this time around, it will be a victory with consequences so rare that it may never happen again in our lifetimes. The very worst case scenario for Indians fans would be a failure and continued series of failures through 2056 just to tie this rare feat. I myself will be 104 years old that year, and I'll only wait if I have to.

Ticket prices this weekend still hover near $2000 for Games 3, 4 and 5 in Chicago. That's just for the cheap seats. Some bars near Wrigley are charging $250 just to get in the door. Why would anyone pay these kinds of outrageous prices? Well, there's nothing like celebrating a big moment with friends. And when you're a fan, everyone who cheers for your team is a friend.

One difference between Harry Rimmer's peanut trick and the World Series should be obvious. I can repeat his shenanigan every time I eat a bag of pistachios. You definitely will not see the Cubs win the World Series every day, though they have a lot of talent and they are young, so who knows, we may be watching the beginning of a dynasty.

* * * *

Other rare events of note:

 ~ Neil Armstrong's "One small step..." on the moon.

~ Last night Cleveland Indians pitchers achieved their 5th post-season shutout.. a first in MLB history. (Go Tribe!)

~ Bob Dylan wins and accepts Nobel Prize for Literature. Why had he not responded to the Nobel committee? "The news... left me speechless."

* * * *

Meantime, life goes on all around you. Take it, dream it, live it.

Where Art and Scandinavia Meet: Alison Aune

It takes a special kind of fortitude to pursue an inner vision that is out of step with the prevailing winds. This is precisely where Alison Aune was at while acquiring degrees in art, including a doctorate from Ohio University (this blogger's alma mater.) While post-pop, modern and post-modern were in vogue, Aune derived inspiration from ancient cultures and her own Scandinavian roots, a vein she continues to mine to this day.

Aune is one of four women whose work will be on display in November as part of a Duluth Art Institute (DAI) exhibition titled 4North: New Work by Alison Aune, Kirsten Aune, Ann Klefstad, and Arna Rennan.

Earlier this week Ann Klefstad shared a little about her work in preparation for this show. Neither Klefstad nor Aune are strangers to group shows.

In 2007-2008 Alison Aune had a show featuring her Swedish paintings in the John Steffl Gallery at the DAI. She has a gallery above Pineapple Arts downtown and is a professor of art education at UMD. She traces her ancestors to both Norwegian and Swedish immigrants who no doubt found the beauty and climate here similar to their homeland... and "there's no place like home." (Especially if it's not Kansas.)

She did her doctoral these on the artist Cora Sandel. The ongoing theme through her work is women’s traditional crafts as inspiration for painting. What follows is from an artist statement:

Contact with pattern from Nordic women’s handwork down through the ages is important to her work. The cultural inheritance from the Nordic countries lies for her in what women sewed, knitted, embroidered or wove, in the home and often in collaboration with other women. It was folk art that came with the immigrant women to the Midwest. Aune’s paintings are multicultural and deal with women’s history, while at the same time the main motif is contemporary. With understanding and deliberateness she creates a clear departure from contemporary art. She has collected patterns from pillows, bedspreads, old mittens and wall hangings. Aune incorporates this into her paintings so that it creates a connection with collective patterns in earlier women’s handcrafts.

A 2015 artist statement amplifies some of these ideas still further:

Artists Between Two Cultures from Oslo: Dag og Tid, Dec.13th, 2013 by Oyvind Gulliksen (Trans. by Arna Rennan)

In these paintings, Alison Aune celebrates her ancestral Swedish heritage and culture by exploring traditional folk art textile patterns, designs, and symbols. In the Knäckebröd Mandala painting series she uses Siljan’s rye crisp bread wrappers as the circle mandala to symbolize harmony and balance. The floral patterns surrounding it and within it are from Swedish material culture: textile patterns such as dukagång, Dalarna kattun, IKEA napkins, and various wrapping papers. These paintings have been exhibited in Minnesota, Washington state, and Sweden.

Høstfest 2015

This is the statement from her 2008 show:

Nordic Pattern Paintings by Alison Aune

For the past several years, I have been integrating historic decorative-symbolic motifs found in Swedish and Norwegian textiles and domestic artifacts into my paintings. The first painting series was called Dekorglädje, literally translated from Swedish as “decoration happiness” and then my work expanded to a Floral Icon and Nordic Mandala series. My current project, Nordic Pattern Paintings includes both traditional Swedish and Norwegian symbolic patterns and designs with floral forms and portraiture. This project is a culmination of my Dekorglädje series and is rooted in the framework of a feminist aesthetic that honors women’s historic contributions to textiles and folk art. Through the process of inquiry, critical reflection, and the direct referencing of these decorative patterns into my paintings, I am discovering the original symbolic meanings and the cultural significance of these designs. In this way, I am not only exploring my heritage but I am keeping the imagery alive by re-contextualizing these ancient forms into a new and contemporary artistic form.

As you can see from the images here her work, like the hearts of the people of Scandinavia, is vividly colorful and stimulating. The attention to detail is rich, like the connections she makes with her culture, a culture woven into the fabric of our own. Especially here in the Northland.

The reception for 4North is November 10. If you are on Facebook, be sure to add it to your calendar.

Meantime, art goes on all around you. Engage it. 

Throwback Thursday: How Will It End?

The Truman Show, starring Jim Carrey as Truman, is a wonderfully original film about a man whose whole life, unbeknownst to him, has been lived in front of TV cameras. His life is a TV show. The story becomes a vehicle for many insights and questions about our own lives, the roles we play, our level of awareness as regards what is really going on outside our own little world.

One of the themes in the film is a pin Truman is wearing. "When Will It End?"

Despite the comic story line, amplified by Carrey's naturally inventive style, the film is serious in tone. And this question is not simply for Truman's audience, but for each of us as well.

We're all familiar with sayings like "it came to pass," with which we comfort ourselves during hard times or a cold spell. Nothing lasts forever, we say. Yet when we say this, we seldom apply this across the board. We generally live as if we ourselves are not going anywhere any time soon. And by extension, few of us can imagine a future in which the United States is no longer the United States.

So when we read books and articles about the fall of the Roman Empire, designed to teach us lessons about how nations and empires fall, how is it that we do not, almost cannot, relate it to our own nation, which is currently the world's strongest superpower?

Last Saturday I wrote about bread and circuses. Someone responded Monday by sharing an article with me from the Wall Street Journal that day regarding a prediction that the U.S. will be history by 2010. According to Andrew Osborn, a certain Igor Panarin has predicted for more than a decade that the U.S. will break up in a civil war due to economic and moral collapse.

This is no lightweight academic. Panarin is a former KGB analyst who is head of the Russian Foreign Ministry's academy for future diplomats. The factors that will bring us down include "mass immigration, economic decline, and moral degradation"... along with collapse of the dollar. His new portrait of our United States will be a breakup into six pieces, Alaska ultimately returning to Russian control.

The story sounds far fetched, but stranger things have happened. No one expected the USSR to unravel as quickly as it did when the Soviet empire began to implode. Would the Wall Street Journal print something like this if it were the rantings of a lunatic? The friend who forwarded this article found it on The Drudge Report.

There was a time when Britain basked in the glow of knowing that the sun never set on the British Empire. How long can the United States be so blissfully oblivious to the reality that all things must pass?

Which leads directly to my question. How will it end? Nothing lasts forever. We know that. So, what next? The evidence that America is in decline is all around. Predictions of decline have been heralded for some time. How serious is our sickness? Will the patient recover?

Is this all too far out? You tell me... because an inquiring mind wants to know.

Almost Wordless Wednesday: Scenes from Last Friday's Twin Ports Arts Events

There was plenty to see, and all three art-themed events and exhibitions were very well attended. Top-to-bottom the photos here were taken at Art on the Plaza, the DAI's Make Your Mark Fund Raiser and Goin' Postal. 

Similar Dogs performed here before going to Amazing Grace.

Art on the Plaza is moving to the former Dunbar Building on Tower Avenue. 

Make sure you check out their new space.

Local artists like Moira created art "live" and the work was auctioned off

to the hoity-toity lumberjack set. 

There were several new artists represented and many familia ones at Goin' Postal

Much of the work will be on display through the winter. 

Be sure to do your Christmas Shipping at Goin' Postal. 

Special thanks to Andy & Becky for their tireless efforts 

to support the arts and ensure all their guests had a good time.

Meantime, art goes on all around you.

Enjoy it. 

And when you really like something, 

ask if it's for sale. 

When you bring it home you can 

enjoy it for the rest of your life.

A Good Day For Lists: 35 Items of Greater or Lesser Insignificance

I've been recently bitten by the David Foster Wallace bug. That is, I keep finding myself drawn to reading more of his work. Impressive is an understatement. Pow! Blam! Ouch.

Wallace liked lists. Or so I've been led to believe. Here's a list of miscellaneous observations, notes to myself of things to read or do, and ideas to ponder. There's always more to do than there is time, so a list is all we end up with in the meantime.

1. Game 1 of the World Series is tonight featuring the Chicago Cubs and the Cleveland Indians, the two teams that have gone longest without winning a World Series championship.
2. Today is World Pasta Day.
3. Who comes up with these things? World Pasta Day?
4. Why is it called the World Series when it only involves a competition North American teams?
5. Blog topic: young bull, Death in the Afternoon, good and bad bulls.
6. Last Friday's Fall Art Show at Goin' Postal was a lot of fun for a lot of people.
7. Blog Idea: Series of blog posts featuring the songs on Dylan's Oh Mercy album, beginning with "Political World."

We live in a political world
Love don't have any place
We're living in times
Where men commit crimes
And crime don't have any face

8. Trivia: Teddy R changed name of Executive Mansion to White House
9. Worth re-reading: How To Lie With Statistics
10. Don't forget to pay your bills.
11. Learn more about Will Rogers.
12. Einstein was a pacifist who became a non-pacifist because of Hitler
13. Item 13 is now removed and has been replaced with this sentence.
14. What are your goals for the next 30 days? Do you have goals or do you simply drift?
15. Submissions are now open for the Water-Stone Review through December 1. They are seeking original, unpublished creative fiction, essays, poetry.
16. In 2009 the richest man in Asia had 168 cars. The average income in India at that time was $500 a year.
17. Jay Leno had more cars than the richest man in Asia.
18. I'm curious how much money the DAI raised last Friday in their Make Your Mark fund raising event.
19. A million square miles of land was added to U.S. as a result of the Mexican War.
20. WikiLeaks: No one likes what Mr. Assange did yet everyone seems glad to have found out about what's been going on underneath Washington's skin.
21. Most dangerous jobs in America #1: Crack Dealer #2: Logging
re: crack dealers... 1 in 4 killed who serve four years on job
22. Fear of being shunned causes people to avoid honesty; takes courage to speak honestly
23. “A hard day’s work never really killed anyone, but why risk it?” ~Ronald Reagan
24. The great virtue of capitalism is that it decentralizes power and minimizes coercion. One nation’s gain does not necessitate another nation’s loss, and it doesn’t discriminate; it is open to anyone.
25. The Man by Irving Wallace made an impression on me as a teen in the Sixties, a novel about the first black U.S. president and the special challenges he would experience.
26.  "Never be afraid to trust an unknown future to a known God." ~Corrie ten Boom
27. In Muslim culture hypocrisy is not as serious of a vice as here because it is better to uphold ideals we fail to live up to than to just give up and say “anything goes.”
28. Blog Entry idea: Great Gatsby and Lady Chatterley’s Lover both have as a theme the difference between good adultery and bad adultery.... A noble adultery and ignoble....
29. Blog Exploration: Do the strong stay strong forever or do they weaken over time (eg. Buddenbrooks)
30. Blog Exploration: What if our brain lost its "sort" function.
31. Life can only be understood backwards, but must be lived forwards." ~Kierkegaard

32. In the "good old days" New York City had 40,000 horses that generated 400 tons of manure a day, 20,000 gallons of urine and nearly 200 carcasses. (19th century stat.)
33. “The future belongs to those who believe in the beauty of their dreams.” ~Eleanor Roosevelt
34. What are you doing today that will make a difference tomorrow?
35. Another verse from Political World:

We live in a political world 
Wisdom is thrown in jail 
It rots in a cell 
Is misguided as hell 
Leaving no one to pick up the trail

The times are most definitely a-changin'.

"The future depends on what you do today." ~Mahatma Gandhi

A Visit with Ann Klefstad on Themes Related to the DAI's 4North

Alison Aune piece for 4North

The Duluth Art Institute has a number of noteworthy upcoming events slated for the next few months. One of these is the 61st Arrowhead Biennial, which is the longest running biennial juried show in the upper midwest. It's a great opportunity to see some of the best work in the region. The opening reception for the Biennial is Thursday, November 10.

Also opening that same evening is an exhibition titled "4North: New Work by Alison Aune, Kirsten Aune, Ann Klefstad, and Arna Rennan."

When Prairie Home Companion's Garrison Keillor talks about Lake Woebegone's Norwegian bachelor farmers, what he's really doing is sharing the particular ethnic influence of our region, Scandinavian and Northern European. Those strains of Scandinavian culture show up in all manner of ways, from the Lutheran churches to the love of outdoors, no matter the season.

Buildings in Duluth like the Sons of Norway Building show that these Scandinavian connections a not only fresh but continually renewed. The four artists in 4North have been part of a number of arts and cultural events there, and with Christmas season approaching it will not surprise me to see more.

The 4North promotional material states that this show "explores a sense of place through four distinct voices. The artists share a Scandinavian heritage, as well as live and work in northern Minnesota. While the four create in disparate media—painting, sculpture, and textile arts—the threads connecting their work reveal a deep reverence for the natural world and the translation and transmutation of patterns and symbols."

I asked Ann Klefstad, a former DNT art critic and lifelong artist, to share some of her perspective on the work she's contributing to 4North.

* * * *
EN: To what extent is your art informed by or inspired by your Scandinavian roots?

Ann Klefstad: Norwegians have always held their land close to their hearts; only 3 percent of Norway is arable land, so wild land, forest, mountains, wildlife, the sea, IS their home. I read, years ago, a tourism-in-Norway book written by an Englishman in the mid-nineteenth-century in which he described the emotions of Norwegians on his ship who were visiting their homeland after emigrating: it was an amazingly affecting account of the way that the landscape evoked extreme emotion-- they wept for joy to see the familiar coast; they wept for sorrow, knowing they would leave it again. My own grandparents, who all grew up in Norway and left as adults, loved and missed their homeland intensely-- and the very land and sea itself was a big part of what they missed, even though Duluth was similar. My great-aunts owned "skog" -- forest land -- and in Norway skog was managed very carefully. It was never clear-cut. The forests were assumed to be entities that would exist forever, and those who owned them and logged them were very conscious of their responsibilities.

When immigrants came to this country, I think much of that fell away. It was not "their" land in the way that Norway had been. But now, it is my land. And I feel the way about this patch of the earth the way they did about Norway. And actually, my grandparents were good land stewards and loved the outdoors deeply here.

Also, Norway is the birthplace of Arne Naess's "deep ecology": a concept of the earth in which the living world has the right to exist for itself-- not merely for human use. His writings on the ethics of ecology have been immensely influential worldwide and are important to me as well.

What remains of my life and career I would like to devote to cultivating in people a consciousness that the living world around them, which was there before people began to occupy the land and which will survive us all, is what determines us, is what teaches us. The animals and the living waters and the forests have a space for us, as animals too, and if we can learn to inhabit that space, we will have a deeper life, with more grace; a consciousness of both what our limits are and what is, indeed, limitless--which we do not control. Our ability to grow out of our whims and our false needs will yield a maturity of perception that is very rich-- a gift from the living world.

EN: How did you come to choose a career in the arts?

AK: Couldn't help it! Not so much a choice as what the skalds would call "wyrd." I am stuck with trying to make things.

EN: Can you share a little about your work for this show?

AK: I am doing several carved wood sculptures of local animals that are carved from wood felled in the recent windstorm. They are finished by fire-- I'm burning the surface to coat them in carbon black. The work engages with global warming (the fire, you know, the carbon). Also, the windstorm is just one example of the extreme weather events that are driven by rapid climate change, and it delivered my materials to me. I traveled around the city in my old truck collecting wood for this project.

Another subtext is simply that animals share our world-- they have as much right to be here as we do. But we create the conditions under which they live, very often. I'm hoping to make people mindful that animals are our companions in this world. I'm not a vegetarian, nor am I against hunting. We people are predators, as are wolves and foxes and hawks. I'm just saying, we need to be mindful of living in harmony with our fellow animals and we need to learn from them. There will be large-scale line drawings of an animal world in the hallway gallery, as well as these wooden burned animals. I may also show a small selection of sketches like the one attached, of Badger being harangued by Toad.

For more details on the DAI's upcoming shows as well as the artist talks and assortment of events slated around the 4North exhibition, visit this page.

Meantime, art goes on all around you. Engage it.

Is This Really the Third Golden Age of Television? Stick a Fork In It.

I once threw a television set off a bridge. I called it an art project at the time. The authorities would've called it littering. Had I been more into the showmanship aspect of this conceptual expression I would have gathered an audience. As a college art student I was making a statement, I believed. I was also going for a certain explosive effect that I was anticipating as the glass onion hit the rocks.

I'm not trying to be mean. Television is an incredibly powerful medium, but as more than one person has noted -- David Foster Wallace most vividly -- it is a powerful distraction from getting other things accomplished. At its essence, network television is clickbait.

Google defines "clickbait" as "content, especially that of a sensational or provocative nature, whose main purpose is to attract attention and draw visitors to a particular web page." It's an internet-era term that I think applies to TV as well.

Wallace notes that one major feature of television is that it's an effortless medium to imbibe in. He writes,  "Easy and undemanding, requires nothing of us, as a result we as a nation are mentally lazy. This is normal to avoid work, which is why few people strive to paint like Leonardo da Vinci or play piano like a virtuoso. We pretend to be philosophers but we really don't do the heavy lifting of philosophers."  

* * * *

It's in this context that I wanted to share a few observations, prodded by my recent re-reading of Difficult Men by Brett Martin. Martin's book is a detailed examination of the players and proceedings of what he argues is "the third Golden Age of television. His premise is that the original Golden Age (fulfilled in the 50s) and the Second Golden Age (a period in the early 1980's) has been experiencing a third, led by a host of influential HBO shows such as The Sopranos and The Wire. These story serials have taken viewers into new territories, producing cult-like fan followings. Breaking Bad, Friday Night Lights, Mad Men, and The Shield are premiere examples of the form.

Martin's book highlights the bold writing, as well as the manner in which exceedingly flawed characters are regarded heroically. It's heralded as a "raw realism."

The chief aim of Difficult Men is to put these groundbreaking scriptwriters on a pedestal and throw accolades.

But at certain points Martin shows too many of the cards in his hand. No question these scriptwriters are exceptionally influential. Are they making the world a better place?

Raw. Realistic.

What was the secret to HBO's success? Martin expressed the problem like this: How can we (HBO) make people pay for our content when they already get more than enough on Network TV... FREE? Well, the answer was not complicated. Show things that you can't get on prime time: breasts and the kind of language that is forbidden there.

From its racy beginnings more than three decades ago today's shows make early HBO look like grade school.

After reading Difficult Men I decided to test the waters a watch one of the series that got raves from the author of this book: The Wire. The story takes place in the inner city of Baltimore. Drugs, gangs, crooked cops, crooked officials higher up the political seawall... corruption and social cancer, all authentically portrayed with solid acting, interesting characters, etc. etc. etc.

As we're going along in episode four the script writers did something that made me roll my eyes. It's well known that Hollywood insiders love to see how much they can get away with. As in any field, people are competitive. So a screenwriter looks for an opportunity to get into the record books for something as meaningful as, um, "Let's see how many times we can get the F-word into a movie?" Yes, a noble pursuit that we all want our children to aspire to. The Wolf of Wall Street packed 506 of them into its 3 hour feast. There was such a buzz about this achievement that you knew ahead of time it was not "a family movie." 

But those screenwriters are competitive and that Scorsese film has been surpassed already with a 900 word F-bomb massacre.

What's the point? It's obvious. People are still watching and this confirms their cynical view of human nature.

Episode four of The Wire (someone can correct me if I'm wrong) takes a page from the Scorsese playbook with a bit of dialogue that is so unreal only a screenwriter could write it.

Remember, the main idea of writing fiction is verisimilitude. That is, the story needs to give the appearance of being real. What you don't want is for the reader (or audience) to have a mental pinprick that produces the thought, "Pshaw, that would never happen." Which is exactly what I experienced in the scene I am about to describe involving detective William "Bunk" Moreland played by Wendell Pierece and detective James "Jimmy" McNulty, played by Dominick West.

There has been a shooting at a residence. These two detectives arrive to check it out. The dialogue our screenwriters apparently provided went as follows. (I have mis-spelled the critical four letter word and replaced it with a euphemism.) Here's the dialogue, as delivered:

Fork
Mother Fork
Fork, fork, fork, fork, fork.
Fork, fork, fork, fork.
Fork
Fork
Fork
Fork
Fork
Mother Fork
Aw Fork
Aw Fork
Fork, fork, fork, fork, fork.
Fork.
Oh, fork, fork, fork.
What The Fork
Forking-A
Fork
Mother Fork
Fork me.

On paper this must have been funny to someone. Raw? I guess. Realistic? Do you think this would be how two detectives would talk for ten minutes when investigating a crime scene? Now I am not suggesting they do not us the F-word. What I am saying is... where are the in between words, like, "What happened here?" or "Oh man, like whoa... Is he still breathing?"

Maybe I lack the experience as a television watcher. The scene struck me as too stupid to be taken seriously. So much for The Wire.

Alas. No wonder our visions of the future are so dystopian. 

Go Tribe! Can Terry Francona Deliver Cleveland Fans the Big One?

Cleveland Indians fans have been feeling pretty good this year. When the season opened last spring local pundits seemed confident about the Tribe's chances to finish on top. Fans like hearing that kind of talk, but the club's April performance seemed to dampen enthusiasm a bit. Over time, the character of the team began to emerge and when all was said and done, they did indeed finish at the top in their division. Two stellar series later and we're now simply waiting to see who our opponent will be in the World Series.

The Indians have not been in the World Series since 1997, in which they were defeated in 7 games. Their previous trip to the Series, in 1954, was also a heartbreaker in the end. With a stellar pitching staff (3 future Hall of Fames) expectations were high, but they were snuffed in four. In 1948 Cleveland achieved this dream behind a host of hot bats and stellar pitching, the same arsenal of weapons this year's Indians are armed with.

Following the Indians success this past month has been a personal thrill, though I've kept my emotions under wraps because of our long history of disappointments. In part, it's because I and many other Cleveland fans are all too well aware of the Curse of Rocky Colavito. Just as Red Sox fans had to endure a lengthy history of remorse for trading Babe Ruth, in the same manner Indians fans have attributed their history of failure to the management stupidity that occurred in 1960.

All my early love of the game came from those Indians teams of the 1950s and early 60s. How quickly they fell from great to, well, not so great. I remember all their names. Vic Power, Woody Held, Bubba Phillips, Jimmy Piersall. When you're a kid and you're a fan, every name is cool. One of the coolest names for me was Tito Francona. I remember seeing him play as a left fielder and watching him hit from the left side of the plate.

The much weakened Indians after Colavito's departure.

Colavito was the coolest of the cool, though. He was young slugger who did this maneuver with his bat each time he went up to the plate, grabbing its ends with both hands and sliding it down over the muscles of his back, a move that every kid I know would try to emulate. For more about Rocky Colavito, visit this article about how "the curse" started, and watch this video about his legacy.

As a kid, though, I think we liked a lot of our heroes just because their names were cool. Or was it that because they were cool we loved the sounds of their names? I dunno. Tito Francona, Rocky Colavito, Minnie Minoso... Indians names with as much potency as their Yankee adversaries.

That's why I think it's grand to have another Francona back on the franchise, leading this team to its historic moment. Cleveland is a town that loves its heroes and appreciates their efforts on behalf of the fans. Cleveland Indians manager Terry Francona already had a lot of us in his corner as soon as he stepped to the helm. The papers call him Terry but he was nicknamed Tito like his dad had been. Like his father he was a first baseman and an outfielder. This is his fourth year as manager after having managed the Phillies and the Red Sox. He took the Red Sox to the World Series twice, the second time breaking the Curse of the Bambino.

His first year in Cleveland he took us to the playoffs and though we came up short, the team has really gelled in this post-season.

As I write this the Chicago Cubs have the National League title within their grasp. With the exception of the Indians, only the Cubs have gone longer without winning the World Series. A lot of people are rooting for the Cubs to defeat the Dodgers this weekend. I, for one, strongly to see the Indians as World Champions, but if they had to lose then this is the only other team I would accept as a consolation. It will be a heart breaker, though.

Enough of that. what follows are a few items that caught my attention while verifying stats for this blog post.

Miscellaneous Baseball-Related Items

Trivia: Tito Francona, Rocky Colavito and the late Arnold Palmer all lived in Cleveland in the fifties and later moved to Pennsylvania.

Here's an interesting YouTube video making a case for Rocky Colavito being in the MLB Hall of Fame.

Home Run Derby: When I was a kid I remember a weekly television show called Home Run Derby in which top home run hitters would compete at hitting home runs. I first saw it when I was visiting my cousins in Nevada. Kids and adults all got thrills from the long ball, so why not make a game of it? I'd forgotten the rules of the game, so it was fun to discover this episode with Rocky Colavito and Harmon Killebrew.

This anecdote from the career of Tito Francona was unusual enough to be recorded on Wikipedia, and seemed worth sharing here in the "incidental details" department. "A bizarre incident occurred to Francona in Spring training heading into the 1961 season. Francona hit an exhibition home run against the Boston Red Sox on March 26 at Hi Corbett Field. When John C. Cota, a city parks employee, went to retrieve the ball, he discovered a dead body. The body was that of Fred Victor Burden, who was wanted by Tucson, Arizona police in relation to the shooting death of former prize fighter James Cocio."

One hallmark of the Cleveland franchise has been great pitching. When I was born my parents named the four teddy bears in my crib after the 1952 starting rotation. Three of these were eventually inducted into the Hall of Fame and all four can be found on the list of top ten greatest Indians pitchers. (We had box seats behind the Indians dugout when Early Wynn made one of his attempts for a 300th career victory in 1962. I was ten.) Going way back to the 1890's one of the greats of all time pitched for those dominating Cleveland teams: Cy Young, for whom the famed Cy Young Award is given annually to the league's top pitcher.

The Cubs bats have kicked in again, and if the pitching holds they're bound to be celebrating all over town tonight in Chicago. Two teams who have known more than their share of bad luck will face off and one will go home having earned a place in history.

Go Tribe!

Chuck Berry at 90, Art Shows and Bucket Lists

"Is it rolling, Bob?" ~Nashville Skyline

This week I saw a news story about Chuck Berry releasing an album of new songs at age 90. Wowzer. Made me wonder what I will be doing for my 90th birthday. I immediately thought of former president George Bush's 90th birthday parachute jump. Then my mind meandered to the notion of bucket lists, parachute jumping in general (I made three jumps in college, before the tandem thing became preeminent) and what it was like to see Chuck Berry at Ohio U in 1973.

If it was indeed 43 years ago that I saw Chuck Berry, that means he wasn't even 50 yet. Back in those days Grace Slick of the Jefferson Airplane stated that no rock 'n roller should still be playing after age 50, that it was indecent (or something to that effect.) If I recall correctly her issue with old rock 'n rollers was that the songs were about protest against the establishment and the old people who ran it. So, has anyone seen her remarks about Coachella's Desert Trip?

To be frank, I would be interested in hearing what kind of songs Chuck Berry has been writing from the vantage point of a long life lived. As a result of an encounter with Muddy Waters, Chuck Berry signed with Chess Records in Chicago. Two Beatles covers were Chuck Berry hits from that time.

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Hanging the new show at Goin' Postal

So, what's it going to be? How's your Friday going? Here's a re-cap of three art events you might want to check out if you're here in the Twin Ports.

The Goin' Postal Fall Art Show is from 6-9 and will be at the usual location in Superior down by the tracks on Tower Ave, though the after party will move to the newly renovated Cedar Lounge. (FREE)

From 3-5 this afternoon there will be a We're Moving show at Art on the Plaza. Their new address will be 1413 Tower starting in November, but their closing celebration is at their Belknap Plaza location and you should try to be there, if nothing else than to hear Similar Dogs perform a couple songs with a guest harmonica player. (FREE)

Finally, from 6:30 to 9:30 p.m. the DAI Make Your Mark Fund Raiser is being conducted down at 1400 Railroad Street, between the Silos and Garfield. There will be local artists making live art as well as plenty more to see with many of the usual suspects on hand. ($50 per person) The attire is Lumberjack Chic, as there is no heat in the building. There will be lots of artists making art, however, generating a measure of warmth thereby. The turn is just before the tracks if you're coming from the direction of the AMSOIL Arena/Bayfront Park. Follow the signs till you get there.

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As for Bucket Lists, I first wrote about bucket lists in this 2009 blog post, and in re-reading it I can see that my somewhat short list is pretty much obsolete. Do you have a "Bucket List" and if so, how serious are you about it. I know some people swear by them as a means of staying motivated for living a life of purpose. What activity are you saving for your 90th birthday?

Well, if that seems a little beyond the scope of your imagination, then just make it your aim to visit with us at Goin' Postal tonight. There's a great batch of talent making art for the Duluth Art Institute, too. Live. For information on additional upcoming DAI exhibitions and events, here's a link to check out.

See you there.... or here, or wherever. It's a weekend. Why not start with art. 

The Biggest Barrier To Accomplishing Your Writing Dreams

"There is a difference between interest and commitment. When you're interested in doing something you do it only when it's convenient. When you're committed to something, you accept no excuses, only results." 
~ Ken Blanchard

I recently began reading a book about sobriety by Jack Canfield (co-author of the Chicken Soup series) and Dave Andrews. What's interesting about this book are the multitude of little thought-gems and practical insights that apply to things much larger than cutting back from drinking. The book is actually a 30-day project and the full title of the book is The 30-Day Sobriety Solution.

In chapter one the authors strive to pound home the idea that unless you are 100% committed you will fail. As I read this I couldn't help applying its message to many other aspects of life, including careers, and especially writing. Here's a section from the paragraph following the Ken Blanchard quote above:

This rule means that once you are 100% committed, there are no exceptions and no renegotiating. Not only does this rule make life easier and simpler, it frees you from inner conflict. Instead of debating over and over about whether you will or won't do something, like drinking, your decision is already made. The real power and value from this comes from all the energy you can now redirect to focus on what you actually want to create and accomplish in your life.

Over the course of a lifetime of writing I have met numerous people who told me, "I've been told my life should become a book." In most cases their stories really are remarkable and should be recorded and shared. These people know they are not writers, but have been led to believe they had a story to tell. And then there are the people who have told me they were planning to write The Great American Novel or some other important book they had inside them. One friend, who has never written a paragraph of fiction in his life, said he was going to quit his job, go to Florida and sit on a beach for four months to write his novel. Ha ha ha.

Writing is not the easiest occupation and it's far from the most lucrative. That doesn't mean you should not pursue a writing career. It may be that you want to simply improve one of the most important skills that apply to any career, the ability to translate jumbled or abstract ideas into concrete prose, into words that actually convey the nebulous notions in your head and heart. It ain't easy. Or I should say, it's not easy to do well.

The authors' next paragraph brings it home, though.

However, the moment your commitment drops to 99%, you open the door for the internal debate to begin, and when it comes... this is a debate that usually ends in a rationalization...

Right there, that's the problem, whether it's a relationship, a dream or an addiction of any kind, it's the rationalizing we do that brings us down.

Do you really want to be a writer? Or do you just tell yourself that and make excuses. Maybe it doesn't matter whether you write or not. Maybe you just like researching things. Or you like the feeling that is associated with saying you are going to be a writer.

I'm not saying you should not be a writer. What I am saying, however, is that i you have been talking about writing a book for five, ten, twenty or more years and have not done it, then you're just not committed. Total commitment is the only way to accomplish something hard. Either you're all in or you're out.

Yesterday I read a news item about Tuesday's passing of Phil Chess, co-founder of the influential Chess Records, and it reminded me of a story I read in Keith Richards' autobiography Life.  Richards stated that when he, Mick Jagger and another friend discovered the blues through Chess Records they didn't just listen to the music, they locked themselves up in an apartment until they learned how to play it. That is, they made a commitment. They were so committed, Richards states, that they didn't even allow one another to have girl friends. Their music was their life. Until they could play the music they loved, nothing else mattered.

If you're serious about writing the book you've been talking about all your life, it's time to prove it by making the 100% commitment necessary to move forward. It's a commitment that involves sacrifices, but it's worth the rewards.

Meantime, life goes on. Where do you see yourself five years from now? 

Almost Wordless Wednesday: Making Marks @ 3 Local Art Events Friday

Quick note about the three shows this Friday.

The Goin' Postal Fall Art Show is from 6-9 and will be at the usual location in Superior down by the tracks on Tower Ave, though the after party will move to the new Cedar Lounge. (FREE)

From 3-5 that afternoon there will be a We're Moving art show at Art on the Plaza. Their new address will be 1413 Tower, but their closing celebration is at their Belknap Plaza location and you should try to be there, if nothing else than to hear Similar Dogs perform a couple songs with a guest harmonica player. (FREE)

Finally, from 6:30 to 9:30 p.m. the DAI Make Your Mark Fund Raiser is being conducted down at 1400 Railroad Street, between the Silos and Garfield. There will be local artists making live art as well as plenty more to see with many of the usual suspects on hand. ($50 per person)

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Last week local artists had a party to make art for Make Your Mark. What follows, with the exception of the last, are some of the marks I made.

Google Earth

Meantime, art goes on all around you. Hope to see you there.